This is a transcription of the Mary Isabel Greeley biography from New Hampshire Women: A Collection of Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Daughters and Residents of the Granite State, Who are Worthy Representatives of their Sex in the Various Walks and Conditions of Life, The New Hampshire Publishing Co., Concord, NH, 1895, page 119.
Mary Isabel Greeley
MARY ISABEL GREELEY, daughter of Samuel P. and Mary Wheeler Greeley, is a native of Manchester, but most of her life was spent in Concord, from whose High school she graduated, and where she was interested in musical and literary lines, her taste in the latter direction being inherited from her mother. Miss Greeley is a very unassuming woman, with a remarkably sweet disposition, a great lover of nature, and a fondness for study. Her public life began with her appointment as commissioner from New Hampshire to the New Orleans Exposition in 1884, by Governor Hale. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, President of the Woman’s Department, writing of her says: My acquaintance with Miss Isabel Greeley dated from the autumn of 1884. She passed the winter with me in New Orleans. From the first I had been impressed with Miss Greeley’s intelligence and efficiency. She soon became both secretary and treasurer of the woman’s department, and I can only speak of her services as invaluable. As a secretary she was prompt and exact, and her minutes never stood in need of correction. As a treasurer her work was no less satisfactory. In addition to the duties of her two-fold office she exercised a general supervision over the various exhibits comprised in our department. Although careful and exact in all her dealings she was always patient and never gave offense by any inconsiderate or ungracious word. Later, she compiled the detailed report of the department, which was published. In 1886 she accepted the position of matron to the Kindergarten for the Blind at Jamaica Plain, the first of the kind established in this country. She still remains at the head of this institution, in which she has endeared herself to children and teachers by her affectionate care for all under her charge. Miss Greeley has the rare gift of not only enjoying her work, but of making it pleasant for her associates to work with and under her, while a deep interest in the welfare of others goes with her through all the varied ways of life.